Sunday, 13 March 2016

Sister of the Bride - Simplicity 2253

I briefly mentioned in my last post the dress I made to wear to my sister's wedding so I thought I'd write about that in more detail today.

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My original plan was to make Vogue 2509, a vintage Sybil Conolly design, but I was struggling with the fit and then couldn't see past the hideous duvet cover I was making the toile out of (note to self: use plain fabric for toiles in future). I really struggle to find good quality fabrics nearby and didn't have the time for a weekend away fabric shopping. So I decided on buying a dress and spent a day in York trying on what seemed like a thousand dresses that didn't fit. By this point there was only a month to go and I was getting a bit worried as I still hadn't been able to finish the bridesmaid dress either.
So I decided to by some navy cotton sateen and make a dress that I had made before. I wasn't going to be the dress of my dreams but it would do. So I tried on a couple of old dresses and decided on Simplicity 2253.

My previous version, pre-blog, was made of a teal polyester dupion fabric. I remembered that it went together surprisingly easily and it still fit so I could just go straight ahead and cut it out.

The only thing I didn't like was the skirt, it's cut straight but almost looks A-line so I pegged the hem and added a back vent. I also finished the hem with Liberty tana lawn bias binding to make it a bit more special. And accidentally put the zip in the wrong side of the dress which is the kind of thing only my mother notices.

And I was really pleased with the result, it fit really well and I was able to wear it to two weddings in quick succession.

I colleague of Mr B's said, when looking at photos, that she would have thought it came from Coast. She buys a lot of dresses from Coast. I'm taking it as a great compliment.

Obviously since the weddings I've seen lots of beautiful fabrics and patterns, its always the way.

What do you do if you are planning an outfit for an event? Do you buy the pattern or the fabric first?